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At age 58 I became a fulltime mother again. As a mother of four and grandmother of seven, I have experienced many parenting challenges. None, however, compare to losing my oldest daughter after years of drug addiction, and in the aftermath, raising her nine-year old child (now 11)-my grandson Colby.
My daughter Ann was a bright, intelligent, beautiful, multi-talented girl with an infectious personality that endeared her to all who knew her. But the substance abuse changed her into a very unlikable person. During the more than 20 years Ann used drugs, she was in in-patient treatment four times, tried several outpatient programs, twice attempted suicide, and was in jail four times-the last time for four months prior to her death. She was hospitalized numerous times. She was on so many prescription drugs for legitimate ailments, and because so many physicians continued to prescribe the drugs, it was impossible to keep track of what she was taking. Her drug of choice prior to her death was methamphetamine.
Ann attended three different universities (never graduated) and had numerous jobs-many of them very good jobs. But because she was frequently unable to function well enough to work, for the most part my husband and I were her sole means of support.
As for our own emotional state, we were distraught. In the mid-1970s and early 1980s, there were few resources available for treatment of substance abuse and addiction. And it was almost a taboo topic for many families. I had many so-called "friends" that, putting it nicely, were not particularly supportive.
Ann gave birth to Colby in 1989. The night he was born, I prayed he would be the motivation for her to get clean, straighten out her life and give her child the life he deserved to have. But that was not to be. The life that little boy had with his mom was very sad. I know Ann loved him with all her heart and soul, but she couldn't pull herself together enough to function like the kind of mother a child needed to have. Ann died on April 15, 1999-just hours after she was released from jail. The coroner listed the cause as drowning, although we will never know what led up to that catastrophe. At best, her life was chaotic. At worst, it was a total nightmare.
Colby had come to live with my husband and me a year before Ann's death, after a particularly terrifying experience for Colby. At that point, our message to Ann was, "This child is no longer going to live in the atmosphere that exists with you. Either get yourself together, or this child is going to be permanently taken away from you. Those are the choices. You decide." It was, indeed, a very ugly scene. By that point, the school and the local legal system had become involved due to Colby's frequent absences. They made him a ward of the court and we were given "temporary placement" status. We now have legal guardianship.
The gamut of emotions I've experienced is overwhelming. Life with Ann was a roller coaster ride-the range of peaks and valleys terrifying. At any given moment, on any given day, I didn't know where I was going to be emotionally. Ironically, the gravity of those feelings became more of a reality in retrospect than at the time. Like a shock victim, some of the time I had felt numb. I now know that the vast amount of energy that I channeled into Ann, her life and her problems, denied the rest of my family the attention and energy that they deserved. The emotional turmoil our family experienced was enormous. Anger, sadness, bitterness, frustration, resentment, loss of spirit-the list goes on-took its toll on all of us. I certainly was not looking at things realistically for a long time and that is one of the most difficult things for me to deal with today.
For so long, I felt like a failure as a mother and as a person. Finally, I took a long hard look at my other three great kids and knew in my heart I couldn't be a rotten person. For reasons I will never understand, I had wanted to believe that if I could just hang in there with Ann one more time, she would turn her life around and become a productive person. At some point-I don't know exactly when-I finally came to terms with the knowledge that nothing was going to change. It was a terrible and painful process, but I believe it helped me cope with her death. I believe that this process of realization-as well as Ann's ultimate death-provided a sense of relief and lifted a burden that in some ways has changed me from the person I was for so long into who I am now. It is difficult to understand and explain these feelings.
Losing a child is a devastating experience-one that I would not wish on my worst enemy. However, in Ann's case, I truly believe her life was not going to change. No matter how many people tried so desperately to help her, only she could make it happen. She had many demons that she fought for many years. She just couldn't find the strength and the skills to combat the helplessness I know she felt. This is not to excuse her actions, behavior, lifestyle and complete lack of responsibility. I will never be able to excuse or forgive the way she chose to live and the very poor choices she made about her life. I have learned from reading, researching and contemplating that the attitudes that exist in an addictive personality is like the proverbial "falling down the rabbit's hole"-- tumbling, tumbling into nowhere with no way to stop.
One of the best books I have read (twice) is "Blessed Are The Addicts" by Father John A. Martin, a priest prominent in the recovery movement. He says, "Addiction is a spiritual disease, a disease of life, with components attached to it --physical, mental, psychological, social, financial-the list is unending." Father Martin believes addiction is a disconnection of the human spirit, that the self-destructive, irrational relationship the addict enjoys with his drug of choice is the bridge between his sense of self and the world around him-his ideas, feelings and body. Without it, that connectedness would be severed. He describes potential addicts as possessing a "constellation of characteristics" that indicate a pre-disposition to addiction. His book has helped me understand more fully the philosophy of addiction, but it doesn't make it any easier to deal with.
Now, I am left with a perplexing challenge: how to set about raising a grandson after living through his mother's chaos. Certainly, this was not part of my life plan. But, there are many things that that happen that one does not necessarily plan for. So be it! Colby has been a part of our household since birth. He needs to be with us-this is where he is the happiest. He has gone from being a very bright, but unhappy, untrusting, introverted, insecure, frightened child with little self esteem to a happy, bubbly, outgoing individual. He feels safe now. He has a wonderful support system of family and legions of friends. He does well in school and is involved in many extra-curricular activities. Counseling has helped-both prior to and after his mother's death. I am not suggesting that all of this has not affected him, because it has. However, it is amazing how well he has handled a very difficult life with his mom and ultimately, her death. The morning we told him she had died, this was his response: "Mama, you know that Mom has had lots of problems and has been sick for a long time. Well, she's at peace now-she's not sick anymore-she's in heaven with God."
Will my approach and methods be different in raising Colby? Probably to some degree. First, I am older and (I certainly hope) wiser. There are many more resources available today for guidance. I also have the benefit of experience. Without question, my day-to-day responsibilities are far greater than my husband's. It was that way in raising our four children. Perhaps it is the generation-or maybe just his personality-I really don't know. He says that while having Colby living with us is not ideal, it is the best situation right now. I know that he loves Colby, but I provide 99 percent of the energy. There are certain positives and negatives about raising a child at our age. While we do not enjoy certain freedoms that come with no children living at home, we try to continue to have a life outside the house.
On a positive note, we are able to enjoy an enlarged circle of friends-young friends and "fun" friends. Although, I must say that those young friends are lots of fun, too. Then, there are the new, yet familiar, learning experiences: sports activities, Boy Scouts, volunteering at school, giving Buster-the-rat a home, the pounding of boys' feet running through the house, the noise and clutter that are inevitable when there are kids around, perpetual laundry, feeling like a short-order cook, and more. The key for me is to simply take one day at a time and try to have SOME time for myself. I thought that I had been watchful, attentive and intuitive with our kids. Maybe I am more so with Colby. There is one to concentrate on now, not four.
I suspect that being older makes a difference in my attitudes and ideas now, too. We know a couple slightly older than we are who are raising a grandchild younger than Colby. Our lives are parallel. We agree that there is comfort in the thought that we have each other to talk to, commiserate with, and share feelings about our lives as they are today. In a recent conversation we discussed the need to have our own lives, yet we each feel that our priority needs to be our respective grandkids. We know we are not alone. Six percent of U.S. children under 18 (3.9 million) live in grandparent-headed households.
But I feel lucky. Many of those grandparents do not have the support system we have. There is assurance in knowing if something happens to my husband and me, any one of our other children would raise Colby as one of their own.
We all want the best for our children. I can only hope that we are able to keep Colby headed in the right direction. I believe that with faith in God, with the love and support of those who surround us, and sheer determination, we can do it.
RESOURCES
I don't know that there are "pat answers" or rules to follow in an attempt to prevent kids from making the poor choices and decisions that lead to substance abuse, etc. My theory is this: The ABC's of Life are Actions & Behavior = Consequences. Whether those consequences are good or bad, you will pay them. This is what life is all about.
What I do know is this: As a parent, you do the very best you can do. If problems arise, you deal with them using any resource available. Some of those resources for parents and grandparents raising adolescents are listed below
COOPER: Education. Nothing else seems to be working. Arresting them is not working. . . If we can get the word out, (we can) get more of them to understand what's happening with the serotonin in their brain and that this is not just immediate. This is long-term (brain) damage.
Some of the things I know about raising kids are:
- Kids need unconditional love, even in the times that you don't really like them.
- They need rules and the understanding that they must follow the rules or pay the consequences.
- They need attention, but not to be the center of it all the time.
- They must have responsibilities in order to become responsible.
- They must know the theory of give and take.
- They must know how to give love as well as receive love.
- Respect for others is so important, and so is respect for self.
- Caring for and about your world and all that is in it is healthy.
- A good, balanced education is vital in today's world.
I hope that in some small way this story will benefit anyone who is experiencing some of the same things that we have. I believe that knowing you are not the only one offers hope and courage to move ahead.
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